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Chaintech Apogee 5700 Ultra Video Card Review

Author: Dennis Garcia

Published: Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Card Features - Heatsink

The heatsink on the AA5700U is comprised of a solid copper sheet with two sets of folded copper fins for cooling. As with most video card coolers this two-fan unit doesn't appear like it would work very well. For instance both fans are spinning in open air without the aid of a fan shroud and the fins are simply bonded to the copper plate. This is by far more than you would find on most video cards and believe it or not it works quite well.

Each fan comes with 2 blue LEDs, Sorry for the lack of glamour pics. sad smile

Thermal pads provide the heat connection between the chips and heatsink. The only bad thing about goopy thermal pads is that it is impossible to get the stuff cleaned off. If anyone has any good tips on removing this gum style heat pad goo feel free to post your ideas in the Ninjalane Message Forum (Ninjaforum).

As with most Chaintech products the included goodies are never skimpy and often quite useful. The AA5700U comes with a rather large software package including:

3Deep
WinProducer3.0
WinDVD 6 Channel
WinDVD Creator
WinRip
Game pack (5 in 1)
Commandos3 (Full version)
GOSU - Graphics Overclocking System Utility

You also get a DVI to D-Sub connector, and S-Video connectors for an alternative video hookup.